Five Victorian shopping centres have been provided with sustainable waste management tools designed to help them transition to a circular economy.
More than 100 businesses based in shopping centres including Monee Ponds Central, Gateway (Geelong), Kallo Town Centre (Hume), Box Hill Central, and Eltham Village, will gain the tools and know-how to reduce waste, recover resources, and improve operational efficiency.
The move is part of the Shopping Centre Circular Economy Capability Building project, supported by Sustainability Victoria and social enterprise Reground. The project goes beyond recycling to focus on reducing waste at the source, keeping materials circulating for longer and avoiding unnecessary costs.
As a recipient of funding through Sustainability Victoria’s Circular Economy Innovation Fund, Reground is dedicated to helping small and medium shopping centres improve the way they manage waste to build a circular economy.
According to Ninna Larsen, Reground founding director, many shopping centres operate with basic one or two-stream waste systems, leading to significant resource loss to landfill and higher management costs.
The project addresses this gap by offering tailored waste audits, tenant engagement, and end-to-end capability building, helping shopping centres divert resources from landfill and create long-term efficiencies.
“By increasing awareness and capacity for sustainability, we aim to empower businesses within shopping centres to step into the circular economy,” Larsen said.
As part of the project, Reground has surveyed traders on its existing waste habits to provide a baseline and conducted a waste audit to observe the volumes of materials it found in the bin.
The Shopping Centre Circular Economy Capability Building project is one of 32 initiatives supported by the Circular Economy Innovation Fund, which has invested $4.3 million in pioneering Victorian projects since launch.
Add comment